I was born on a moldy mattress in a bad part of London. Sometimes I think that’s why I’m crazy. But (crazy) Aunt Cath doesn’t like to talk about all that. She doesn’t want to think about the grimy windowsills or the dirty ceiling, or the fact that her sister, Pamela, had to live that life. She hates it when I talk about how all Mam had to wear was a blue nightdress—silk and faded. I didn’t even have shoes. It was an emergency—a real emergency—that forced my father to buy clothes. No less. He thought all humans should remain beautiful and naked, which he was most of the time. I don’t know if he was a nudist or just extreme. It was simply his strange and sometimes sinister disposition. Auntie Cath thought he was trash. By the end, I thought so, too.
There was fear in Mam’s eyes when she held Nori sometimes. I know she felt it. Everyone thought she was weak, but I thought she was strong. Until the end. Nori would think her weak, too, if she’d been old enough. It was no secret that we were all afraid.
She didn’t have many words to use by the end. He beat them out of her, with his words, with his hands. They were knocked clean out or crooked, like some of Nori’s teeth. But, see, Mam wasn’t crazy. Or maybe she was. We were all a bit gone living with him.
We snuck onto the train at 10:03, me and Nori alone, and we watched the gray of London fading away into green and yellow fields, and then into gray mountains. It was a long trip, and a big woman served food from a trolley in each compartment. But we had nothing to spend. People get precious about money, funny thing that, it being paper and ink. Nori tugged on my hand and pointed to her belly and I shrugged because what could I do? But there were tears on her cheeks, smudging the dirt, so I pulled off my button–the only one left–and gave it to her to suck, and she fell asleep, wrapped up in the good blanket.
When the train stopped it was dark; I couldn’t see anything, and I could feel that something was different. There were tall trees outside, black in the throes of midnight, and I felt the absence of the London smog and buildings fiercely. Then came the storm and a walk longer than I have ever done and I nearly lost my foot skin. What a joke, all that effort to end up here.
La Baume is a big, sprawling manor. I could tell that even in the dark. I felt it. A big, empty place, half falling down, and it was all for Cath. It must have been lonely all by herself in that house the color of blood. She must have been afraid to be alone.
But we’ve come to her now, to the place where there’s space and food and joy and light. The place where Mam grew up, too. Only nothing lasts forever, does it? Which is the only perfect truth.
We liked it at first, but then the thing in the woods came, the people left, and now we are alone in a ghost town.
Nori sees him first.
By the time I look up from the ashy soil, she’s almost at the boundary with Python Wood.
“NORI!”
My screams should echo across the field, but they don’t. Nothing has buoyancy anymore, not even my terror.
“Nori, stop! STOP!”
Her hand signs reach across the distance. I’m playing!
“Come back here right now!”
But she’s already turned away, skipping toward trees that loom before her like sentinels.
Nonononononono. I don’t know if Cath is right about the thing in the woods or not, but I remember her terror before she went mad, and I have felt… something about Python. And I can’t risk losing Nori, too.
“Nori, damn it, stop right now, I mean it!”
She doesn’t stop, and I run. I’m faster, but not by much, and when I reach across the distance that separates us to grab at her shoulder, her dress, her hair—anything to get her to stop—we are right at the boundary. I feel the coldness of the wood like a fridge door just opened. A breath. A puff. So eerie.
I shake her roughly, and the crooked bone of her right arm shocks me, even now. It’s so weak, thin, warped. Her mouth opens in an O that should have sound, but never has.
“You stop when I call you, do you understand me?”
She begins to cry. It occurs to me that I’m still holding her arms tightly, so I force my grip to soften, and then let go completely.
She signs: But the boy is hiding and I have to find him.
“What boy?”
He’s going to win!
I should ignore her. Take her hand and march her back inside. But something stops me. It’s always the same, so close to the wood. A feeling of being seen. Not just watched, but really looked at. I still remember, three years ago, when Cath screamed like that… her terror at the idea of Nori going into the woods. Maybe her fear is infecting me, too. Now that she’s not really here anymore.
Staring out at the ancient boughs, all of them dripping moss, I whisper, “Nori, tell me right now. What boy?” My skin is crawling.
She wears a pout, unaware that a certain sense of darkness is growing up behind her, deep within the trees. It’s as though the day is somehow later in the wood than it is out in the field. Impossible.
Look! Her hands yell. There he is! I told you!
And someone is coming. I maneuver Nori behind me and wait, muscles tense and ready to fire. What can I do? Run? With Nori? I look around for a weapon, but the only thing of use is a fallen branch, and I don’t want to touch any part of Python Wood. I’m not even sure I know why.
Don’t be like Cath, I berate myself. But I still don’t touch the branch.